Page 114 - Michael Frost-Voyages to Maturity-23531.indd

whose first husband, a fighter pilot, had been killed in the war), their daughter
Jacqueline (two years older than me, a very darkly attractive and intelligent
young lady who went to school in a convent and excelled in everything that she
tried) and a much younger Michael, the son of John and Paddy, a rather forlorn
young man, probably gay, but confused, I think because his father dearly wanted
him to enter the Catholic priesthood, probably against any of Michael’s personal
preferences, but who as a young man of some sixteen years later came to a tragic
and rather mysterious early death. Into this mix my parents, of substantially more
liberal views, encouraged David and me to express views of our own and not be
afraid to express them with polite force. Thus, when Whalley began to ask us to
give some background, I somewhat blithely declared my preference for history
as an intellectual discipline (because I had that ‘A’ level, a qualification that very
few as young as I had obtained, but which for which I had sat because of a superb
teacher who had taught both of us, and who simply believed that anybody with
drive could pass a two-year course in one; both David and I found him to be
quite correct) but I was then delighted to hear Whalley declare this to have been
an excellent choice of personal interest. I was home-free when he found that I
also favoured Sibelius symphonies (about which he was obviously completely
ignorant) and that I knew how to properly use a knife and fork and the order
in which to use the Waterford. From Pearl, apparently permanently ailing, we
heard nothing; she looked elderly and uninterested in discussion. In the style of
‘Downton Abbey’ she disappeared early from the table and we men(!) were left
to pass the port decanter (encased in a pristine silver wheeled vessel with ‘from
N.Z.S. to the School of Navigation’ emblazoned thereon) to the left (in order to
leave the right to grasp our swords). Discourse became somewhat less erudite
from that point onwards. It was, somewhat like the Captains’ cocktail parties, a
prissy, old-fashioned sort of evening with desultory but interesting conversation;
I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I had decided that I would choose for the subject of my ‘thesis’ an essay on the
Russo-Finnish War of 1939. I chose it because after the war my father had bought
the nine- volumes of ‘The Second World War’ by Sir John Hammerton, and these
contained the tale, and pictures, of a war of which few seemed knowledgeable.
And, of course, it was redolent of Sibelius’ music. Moreover, the Finnish Embassy
in London provided me with all sorts of good leads when I wrote to them to ask
what I could find that would enlarge the feeble stuff in the school’s library. After
the dinner with Whalley I felt that, if needed, I could get an accolade or two from
that powerful corner.
One of life’s most momentous events in a young man’s life then happened;
I passed my driving test. And this naturally leads to the next important step;
the obtaining of a car! On November 16th, I realised that the need for a vehicle
had suddenly become that much the greater; the school had an Open Day and
Jacqueline came down to enjoy the festivities (she lived at home in Horsham,

113